About Me

Kristin Bricker is a freelance journalist and translator. She specializes in militarization, social movements, and the drug war in Latin America.

Kristin is a contributor to the CIP Americas Program. She previously served as the Security Sector Reform Resource Centre's Latin America blogger. Her work has appeared in NACLA, the Huffington Post, IPS, Foreign Policy in Focus, Counterpunch, Telesur, Rebelión, Left Turn, The Indypendent, Upside Down World, Por Esto!, The Guatemala Times, and The News (Mexico). Kristin has appeared on Al-Jazeera, Democracy Now!, Radio Mundo (Venezuela), Morning Report (New Zealand), Radio Bemba (Mexico) and various Pacifica radio programs. Her work has been cited in the Los Angeles Times, Proceso, and the Congressional Research Service's Report for Congress.

Kristin contributed a chapter about Mexico's peace movement to Global Fire, Local Sparks, published by the Indypendent.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

On Sunday, August 19, Guerrero State Police found the cadaver of a United States citizen inside a vehicle at kilometer 14 of the Acapulco-Zijuatanejo federal highway, near the town of El Cerrito de Oro.

32-year-old Joseph Steven Proctor, originally from Georgia, was found dead with two shots in his arm and forearm. Next to his body was a AR-15 [assault] rifle with 34 bullets and two spent .233 caliber casings. Domingo Olea, an agent with the public prosecutor's office in Coyuca de Benítez, stated that according to military authorities, Proctor opened fire against a military vehicle that had signaled for him to stop as it was patrolling the zone. The soldiers were forced to defend themselves and return fire, causing the vehicle to flip over.

William Proctor, Joseph's father, said that he had no knowledge of his son being involved in any illicit activities, nor that he owned a gun, and he was skeptical about the alleged attack on the soldiers. He asserted that his son was a gardener when he lived in the United States and was in the process of divorcing his wife. For the past six years he had resided in Mexico with his girlfriend, Liliana Gil Vargas and a son. In an interview, Gil Vargas said that her boyfriend left at 10pm to make some purchases in an auto parts store. She questioned the official version: "I heard that six soldiers shot him and they planted an AK-47 on him, when he never uses weapons. We don't have weapons. He could have never done such a thing."

Proctor's father had reservations about the official version of events: "I doubt it. Joseph had a temper but he never used weapons... He always got mad when the police detained him looking for a bribe."

His mother said the same: "I heard about that. I don't believe it... I need more information... I want to know what happened."

However, the incident could become yet another case of human rights violations committed by the military. It is unsettling that the soldiers didn't report the confrontation, and that it was instead an anonymous call to 066 [Mexico's emergency telephone number] at 2am that reported the truck's location.

Even though Barack Obama's government has been silent on the issue, El Universal reported that the United States consulate was pressuring the military to have the soldiers testify before the public prosecutor.

According to the Associated Press, "an official with the Natonal Defense Ministry who requested to remain anonymous said... that the military is investigating the incident and that it appeared as though the US citizen's body was found in the front passenger seat, meaning that there could have been another person involved, even though no one else was found in the area."

CNN reveals more inconsistencies: "US officials have received contradictory reports regarding if 32-year-old Joseph Steven Proctor shot first at the Mexican soldiers... Proctor died, according to the US State Department, either because he tried to drive through a checkpoint [without stopping], causing the soldiers to shoot, or because he opened fire as he was passing by the checkpoint, causing the soldiers to shoot at him."

It is also difficult to believe that Proctor was able to drive the Windstar and fire the gun at the same time.